[4] The Rāyāt al-mubarrizīn wa-ghāyāt al-mumayyazīn was made as an epitome of the fifteen-volume al-Mughrib fī ḥulā l-Maghrib ('The Extraordinary Book on the Adornments of the West'), whose compilation Ibn Said completed.
However, Ibn Said's prologue to the Rāyāt al-mubarrizīn wa-ghāyāt al-mumayyazīn explains that he made it before al-Mughrib fī ḥulā l-Maghrib was complete, and accordingly he took care to indicate the ultimate sources of his texts.
[5] Ibn Said wrote that he wished to include only those few fragments "whose idea is more subtle than the West Wind, and whose language is more beautiful than a pretty face.
[8] Authors include bureaucrats, gentlemen, kings, ministers, and scholars; the book is evidence of how important love poetry was to the educated of al-Andalus.
[12] An excerpt from a poem of the Pennants, "The Tailor's Apprentice" by Ibn Kharuf (d. 1205), in Arberry's translation, serves as one example: His stool, the steed he rides upon Rejoices in its champion Armed with the needle that he plies Sharp as the lashes of his eyes.
[13] Gómez's translation greatly influenced modern Spanish poetry, not least Lorca, whose El diván del Tamarit was particularly indebted to the book.